There were oodles of colored pencil artists at the convention who also received these samples and can try it for themselves, so I have restricted my testing to graphite, ink and silverpoint – all among the media suggested on the front of the sample piece.

Interestingly, my success with the first round of pen & ink (below) seemed to depend on the pen used. All of the pens have Rotring Brilliant black fountain pen cartridge ink in them, but ink from the Platinum Carbon fountain pen with the finest tip bled like crazy, while that from the Rotring Art Pens behaved much better. Unfortunately, the stipple dots were not dry and still printed quite nicely on my finger about 20 minutes after I laid them down. Not a good substrate for me to work on in pen & ink – I’d have the ink all over my hand and the paper (plus a few nearby surfaces, guaranteed) in very short order.

TerraSkin paper with ink & graphite swatches

When I tried the same set of pens with my current favorite, Noodler’s Ink (below), it was an epic fail. Rather than just the ink from Platinum Carbon fountain pen bleeding and feathering on the paper, all of the pens showed the same problem – not a crisp line to be found! The other issue with the Noodler’s is that this particular ink is from their “Bulletproof” line, meaning that once it is applied to a surface containing cellulose (my drawing paper, ink blotter and/or cotton shirt), it is permanent and waterproof (but not meant to stop actual bullets). Since the TerraSkin’s components are crushed mineral powder and nontoxic resins, Noodler’s Ink has no cellulose to make it waterproof. Even after the ink is long dry, it still bleeds and runs when wetted.

This does not necessarily mean that TerraSkin is not appropriate for pen & ink – there may be other brands and/or types of ink much better suited to use on this paper. For me, I’ll pass.

The graphite swatches (above) faired much better – graphite goes onto this paper very smoothly. The feel of it reminded me of Yupo paper, but with a bit more tooth. The white specs that show through graphite drawing on most papers are very minimal on TerraSkin, and show up only when I used the pencil lightly and/or on the side of the point. If I held the pencil up straight and used the tip of the point, coverage was virtually complete, especially with light pressure. There is no visible grain or pattern to the specs as happens with some papers, and even my softest, darkest 9B Grafwood pencil smudged surprisingly little when pushed with my finger.

Noodler’s Ink on TerraSkin – FAIL!

The big happy surprise came when I picked up my silverpoint pencil – silverpoint is listed in the “ideal” list of media, but one never really knows until one tries it out just how ideal it truly is. Although it is difficult to see at the bottom of the two photos above, the silverpoint writes quite nicely on this paper. I am not aware of any other paper that is ready-made for silverpoint drawing – all require a surface coating of white gouache, silverpoint drawing ground or other suitable preparation. It is a treat to have paper ready to draw on without any prior fussing and drying time.

Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff carries TerraSkin products – sketchbooks as well as sheets and rolls of paper, and the Etsy shop MitzRocks offers a slightly different selection of TerraSkin sketchbooks, journals and papers as well.